Related papers: Heterogeneous critical nucleation on a completely-…
Homogeneous nucleation, a textbook transition path for phase transitions, is typically understood on thermodynamic grounds through the prism of classical nucleation theory. However, recent studies have suggested the applicability of…
The line-tension effects on heterogeneous nucleation are considered when a spherical lens-shaped nucleus is nucleated on top of a spherical substrate and on the bottom of the wall of a spherical cavity. The effect of line tension on the…
Flat walls facilitate the condensation of a supersaturated vapor: Classical theory of heterogeneous nucleation predicts that the free energy barrier $\Delta F_{\rm het}^*$ which needs to be overcome for the formation of sphere-cap shaped…
Close to sinusoidal substrates, simple fluids may undergo a filling transition, in which the fluid passes from a dry to a filled state, where the interface remains unbent but bound to the substrate. Increasing the surface field, the…
Ice nucleation is greatly important in areas as diverse as climate change, cryobiology, geology or food industry. Predicting the ability of a substrate to induce the nucleation of ice from supercooled water is a difficult problem. Here, we…
During the processes of nucleation and growth of a precipitate cluster from a supersaturated solution, the diffusion flux between the cluster and the solution changes the solute concentration near the cluster-solution interface from its…
The kinetics of nucleation of a core-shell composite nucleus that consists of a core of stable final phase surrounded by a wetting layer of intermediate metastable phase is studied using the kinetic theory of binary nucleation not only in…
We study non-equilibrium analogues of surface phase transitions in a minimal model of active particles in contact with a purely repulsive potential barrier that mimics a thin porous membrane. Under conditions of bulk motility-induced phase…
Recent work has highlighted roles for thermodynamic phase behavior in diverse cellular processes. Proteins and nucleic acids can phase separate into three-dimensional liquid droplets in the cytoplasm and nucleus and the plasma membrane of…
The classical nucleation theory (CNT) concept of a nucleus as a fragment of the bulk new phase fails for nanosized nuclei. An extension of CNT taking into account the properties of the transition region between coexisting bulk phases is…
Using the 2D Ising model we study the generic properties of nucleation in hydrophobic nanopores. To explore the pathways to nucleation of a spin-up phase from a metastable spin-down phase we perform umbrella sampling and transition path…
The dihedral contact angles between interfaces in three-fluid-phase equilibria must be continuous functions of the bulk thermodynamic fields. This general argument, which we propose, predicts a nonwetting gap in the phase diagram,…
When applying a voltage bias across a thin nanopore, localized Joule heating can lead to single bubble nucleation, offering a unique platform for studying nanoscale bubble behavior, which is still poorly understood. Accordingly, we…
Despite its importance in atmospheric science, much remains unknown about the microscopic mechanism of heterogeneous ice nucleation. In this work, we perform hybrid Monte Carlo simulations of the heterogeneous nucleation of ice on a range…
Homogeneous nucleation of a new phase near an Ising-like critical point of another phase transition is studied. A scaling analysis shows that the free energy barrier to nucleation contains a singular term with the same scaling as the order…
The prevalence of heterogeneous nucleation in nature was explained qualitatively by the classical theory for heterogeneous nucleation established over more than 60 years ago, but the quantitative validity and the key conclusions of the…
In their ground states, atomic nuclei are quantum Fermi liquids. At finite temperatures and low densities, these nuclei may undergo a phase change similar to, but substantially different from, a classical liquid gas phase transition. As in…
First order phase transitions proceed via nucleation. The rate of nucleation varies exponentially with the free-energy barrier to nucleation, and so is highly sensitive to variations in this barrier. In practice, very few systems are…
We report simulations on the homogeneous liquid-fcc nucleation of charged colloids for both low and high contact energy values. As a precursor for crystal formation, we observe increased local order at the position where the crystal will…
The solid diffusive phase transformation involving the nucleation and growth of one nucleus is universal and frequently employed but has not yet been fully understood at the atomic level. Here, our first-principles calculations reveal a…